Anthony Rizzo says Brewers-Rays World Series would be terrible, but not for the reason you think

You may or may not have heard, but there's a lockout coming to swallow baseball whole this winter. And the Milwaukee Brewers, in the midst of their best-looking postseason run since at least 2018, are caught right in the middle of it.

As a small-market team trying to dethrone the financial titans from Los Angeles, there are ramifications to be had depending on the fate of the NLCS. Don't expect the league (or the players' union) to suddenly change their tone if the Dodgers fall one step short of the Fall Classic for the first time in three years, but certain arguments regarding parity and its correlation to payroll will need to be reexamined.

Which is exactly why longtime Brewers foe Anthony Rizzo is rooting against a potential Brewers-Rays (or even Brewers-Guardians) World Series matchup; it's not that he doesn't want to see the little guy win -- he even said he loves the way the Crew play baseball -- but rather that he fears what kind of consequences there will be if two small-market squads square off for a title.

Said Rizzo on his podcast with his former teammate David Ross, "It would be amazing and it would be terrible…If the Rays and Brewers are in the World Series, every single owner is going to say ‘why can’t we be them?’ And they’re not going to want to spend any more money. That’s why I would hate it but the product of baseball…would be awesome.” So it's not that the former Cub doesn't want to see the Brewers in the Fall Classic; it's that he's concerned about the impact it will have on spending and the inevitable lockout this winter.

MLB owners will spin World Series narrative in their favor, regardless of Brewers' playoff fate

There's nuance in Rizzo's take that I won't get into in complete detail here, but his concern is valid. Most MLB owners, including the Brewers' own Mark Attanasio, like to run their franchises like a business: profit comes first, everything else second.

That's not to say that spending is in a bad spot in baseball, but it's become clear that owners prefer to compete for pennies on the dollar. That's a difficult thing to do when you've got organizations with limitless wallets like the Yankees and Dodgers, which is exactly why the recent success of the Brewers, Rays, and Guardians is so important to this entire conversation.

On one hand, seeing the Crew beat the two-time reigning champs would kneecap the owners' pursuit of a salary cap. It's going to be hard to sell players (and fans and the media) on the idea that it's impossible to compete in the current landscape as a small-market team when three of the last four standings are in the bottom 10 in payroll this year. Spending more certainly gives you a bigger margin for error, but beating the Dodgers in the NLCS would be pretty hard evidence that lower-spending franchises like the Brewers can keep pace.

Then again, harkening back to Rizzo's point, owners will point to the success of the Brewers and ask why their organization can't have the same success at a similar level of investment. It's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for MLBPA, but that's the nature of a lockout.

It's still for the best if the Brewers advance to the World Series, because the parity conversation would get flipped on its head mere weeks prior to the work stoppage. But don't be surprised to see the league's owners spin whatever happens into their own favorable narrative, in a not-so-subtle attempt to sway the public in their favor.

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